Horrific Accident at the Newcastle Coal Mines
A coal miner suffers the loss of his feet after a tragic accident at the Newcastle mines.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
About half past six o'clock last evening, a coal miner employed at Newcastle, named Peter Duffey, who was walking from Coal Creek down to the camp, attempted to jump on a passing train, slipped, and fell so that the wheels of the tender passed over his feet, mashing them both horribly; in fact, so terribly were they crushed that amputation will be necessary. The poor wounded man was placed in the 'Georgia's' cab and taken to town in all haste and taken to the hospital, where he is receiving the best of medical and surgical attendance. The unfortunate man is a brother of Barnard Duffey, a well-known citizen of Newcastle.
“The wheels of the tender passed over his feet, mashing them both horribly; in fact, so terribly were they crushed that amputation will be necessary.”
Coal mining in the Newcastle area—now a suburb of Bellevue—was the region's primary industrial engine in the 1880s, marked by extreme physical hazards. This story reflects the era's lack of workplace safety protections, where 'jumping' on slow-moving supply trains was a routine, if deadly, necessity for laborers.
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